As Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe put it in the foreword of the delightful book The English Garden Room, ‘the supreme purpose [of orangeries] is the creation of a crystal box that for a brief period carries you to the shores of the Mediterranean (or some equally warm area) to which we are biologically attracted.’ The ‘garden room’, meaning a structure that is located in the garden, separate from the main house, has had something of a comeback in recent years. The idea of an ‘orangery’, however, has a much more sophisticated ring to it, and indeed in its purest form, an orangery is a glorious thing.